Compression Controls (Cubase Dynamics Explained)

What is Compression and Limiting? What does it do to an audio signal? Learn the fundamentals of setting Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release and Makeup Gain and how these different settings effect an audio signal.

Nice work. However, I think it is important to keep in mind the perceptual aspects as well as the mathematical ones. For example, a 10 dB change is a halving (or doubling) of perceived loudness, yet mathematically (for volts, pressure and some others), a 10 dB change is a factor of 0.316 or 3.16 (respectively). Each change of 10 dB is 1/2 or 2x, for example, a sound that's 70 dB will likely be perceived as twice as loud as a 60 dB sound, four times as loud as a 50 dB sound, and so on. That is, a 6 dB change is a 2:1 change in the magnitude of the signal (2x or 0.5 x, depending), but a 6 dB change will be perceived as 1.5x or 0.66 as loud (respectively). There are other factors that contribute (spectral and temporal aspects of the signal and this is why as pointed out the attack and release times matter so much and must be tweaked), but a good general relationship to keep in one's head is that the perceived change in loudness is approximated by 2^(n/10), where 'n' is the change in dB; if for example the change is – 10 dB (10 dB quieter) then the expression becomes 2^(-10/10) = 2^(-1) = 1/2 = 0.5, or one-half as loud. a 17 dB reduction (for example) as 0.3x as loud as the previous level.